“Well?” he said at last.
“But——”
“But?”
“But you never did approve of me.”
“Didn’t I? I don’t know. I have always loved you.”
“I have never loved anybody—before.”
That was as near as she managed to get, then or for long thereafter, to the matter of her previous engagement.
“No. Of course not. But for the future?”
Without taking her head from his shoulder, she lifted her eyes to his; and he found the pledge he sought in them.
And that upturning of her face brought her lips, her newly grave, sweet, submissive lips, very near, and the gladness within him was newborn and strong. And so the storm swept itself away, and the purple-necked doves cooed and called again where the sunlight glistened through the dripping laurels, and these two were hardly aware. Then suddenly a Bhutia girl with a rose behind her ear came and stood in the door of the cave and regarded them. She was muscular and red-cheeked and stolid; she wore many strings of beads as well as the rose behind her ear, and as she looked she comprehended, with a slow and foolish smile.